As a transsexual and as an athlete, Renee Richards has an idea of what Mianne Bagger is going through and how this latest turn in the evolving story of sex and sports might play out.
The boundaries of the games keep shifting. Seven women competed on the men's tour last year. People like Richards, the first transsexual to play pro tennis 28 years ago, and Bagger, now the first in pro golf, force everyone to rethink the rules.
Unless the rules change, Bagger would be barred from playing in LPGA Tour, US Golf Association and Ladies European Tour events, since she wasn't female at birth.
Bagger's 12-over 84 Thursday in the Women's Australian Open -- run by Women's Golf Australia -- allayed some misplaced fears that she possessed a physical advantage by being born male.
Bagger, 37, had her sex change operation in 1995 and has been taking muscle-deflating hormones for more than a decade. Michelle Wie can outdrive her by 100 yards. Testosterone has yielded to estrogen. Bagger is no threat to women's golf and should be allowed to compete on the tour if she earns a spot.
"In the present climate of Barry Bonds and all these steroid things," Richards said, "what are they afraid of? This woman is taking pills to make her weaker."
At 69, Richards' passion is golf. She squeezes in rounds on days off from her practice as an eye surgeon in New York. She played last Sunday on a Long Island course crusted with traces of ice on some fairways. She's an 11 or 12 handicap. Like everyone else, she would love to be in single digits.
She would have loved to win tournaments on the women's tour when she turned pro amid a torrent of controversy in the summer of 1976, but wasn't close to the level of Chris Evert, Tracy Austin, and Martina Navratilova but beat some other top 10 players.
As Richard Raskind before her sex reassignment surgery, she had been good enough to captain the Yale varsity tennis team in 1954, and reach the final of the national 35-and-over championships in 1972. After the operation in 1975, Richards left behind a former wife and 4-year-old son in New York to start fresh in California.
When she won a local women's tournament in La Jolla, California, a former acquaintance recognized the resemblance to Raskind and tipped off a television sportscaster. At 41, Richards chose to go public and put aside her medical career to make a point on the tennis court for other transsexuals. She won a court order allowing her to play as a woman in the 1977 US Open.
She played until she was 46, and her greatest successes on court were reaching the doubles final at the US Open and winning the 35-and-over women's singles. She later coached Navratilova to two Wimbledon wins.
She challenged people's perception then, just as Bagger is now, and knows how tough it can be.
"She's going to face people laughing at her," Richards said in an interview. "She's going to face people complaining that she's got an unfair advantage over the other women. She's going to face some grief from the players association, from players themselves who think that she has no business horning in on their private club.
"She's going to have nasty articles written about her. And she may have some threats to her physical being.
"She'll make some friends on the tour. There will be some players who will be very supportive, who will be nice to her. She'll have some good experiences and she'll have some negative experiences. Is she going to make a lot of money? I don't know. How good is she?"
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